Microsoft has been ordered to pay $1.5 billion to Alcatel-Lucent after losing a patent dispute regarding the MP3 audio technology used by Windows. The enormous fine comes after a verdict by a federal jury in San Diego ruled that the company should compensate for damages based on each Windows PC sold since May 2003. Microsoft claims that it licensed MP3 technology from Fraunhofer in a $16 million deal, and also claims that the patent may not cover overseas Windows sales, arguing they should be excluded from the damages. Alcatel-Lucent previously sued Dell and Gateway during 2003 in similar cases.

Alcatel-Lucent is a telecom corporation. Like they ever would have developed and used this technology. This is just one of those corporations that acquire patents and wait for someone to screw up so they can sue them.

Whatever.

That's a sleazy way to make a profit. I guess the 1.5 billion will make up for their profit losses last quarter. That's probably more than this corporations yearly earnings.

Its not over yet, microsoft can always appeal. Honestly though Microsoft obtained a patent for it so they SHOULD be fine, even so think of the hundreds of not thousands of companies that could get sued over this.

Bill Gates was heard in the court room asking the judge; "So, do you want the cash right now, or should I just mail you a check? I might have to dip into my I'm-Going-To-Build-a-Ball-Pit-In-My-Huge-Mansion Fund"

You can't stop the greed of others though, and if that's the kind of dirty tactics Alcatel-Lucent have lowered themselves to, then they deserve whatever legal nightmare I'm sure MS will unleash on them.

Consider an average American of modest wealth. Perhaps she has a net worth of $70,000. Mr. Gates' worth is 800,000 times larger. Which means that if something costs $100,000 to her, to Bill it's as though it costs 12 cents.

So for example, you might think a new Lambourghini Diablo would cost $250,000, but in Bill Gates dollars that's 31 cents.

A nice home in a rich town like Palo Alto, California? Two dollars. That nice mansion he's building? A more reasonable $63 to him.

You might buy a plane ticket on a Boeing 747 for $1200 at full-fare coach. In Bill-bills, Mr. Gates could buy six 747s (Not tickets, the planes themselves).

Some are fascinated by how much much all this money would be if put into dollar bills. Laid end to end, the Bills would stretch 3.8 million miles -- to the moon and back over 8 times. They could paper over all of Manhatten 7 times, or be stacked 2,690 miles high -- watch out for satellites. They would weigh 40,000 tons -- 100 times the weight of one of those 747s he bought above.

But one thing Bill can't do is even dent the national debt. Should he selflessly donate his stock to the U.S. treasury, he would reduce the $5.37 trillion national debt by well under 1%. It's nice to put things in perspective.